Mary+Whitney


 * SUMMARY: Mary Whitney, age 26, died on April 2, 1924 after an abortion reportedly perpetrated by Dr. Lou E. Davis in Chicago. **

 On April 2, 1924, 26-year-old homemaker Mary Whitney underwent an abortion at the Chicago office of Dr. Lou E. Davis. On May 17, Mary died at St. Mary's Hospital of complications of that abortion. Dr. Davis was held by the coroner on May 19.

Davis was also implicated in five other Chicago abortion deaths:
 * September 1913, 27-year-old Anna Adler
 * November 1928, 22-year-old Anna Borndal
 * December 1928, 23-year-old Esther V. Wahlstrom
 * May 1932, 24-year-old Irene Kirschner
 * February 1937, 27-year-old Gertrude Gaesswitz

Mary's abortion was typical of criminal abortions in that it was performed by a physician, though Chicago in that era also had a plethora of midwives who practiced abortion.

Keep in mind that things that things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future. For more about abortion in this era, see [|Abortion in the 1920s].

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

Source:


 * [|Homicide in Chicago Interactive]

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